Moderator 4 (aka Jack F) has decided to ban me for two weeks for posting the following message on an off topic board at ARN

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I'll lose interest in ARN soon, but have followed some posts that I was interested in before I decided to quit. But I happened to see this post by Mike B.

I was threatened with removal after two postings, one which asked why YXCs post was spam and one that simple said I agreed with Douglas, XYCs post should stay because it brought up interesting points for discussion on Dembski's overly repetitive arguments. I then suggested a new direction for the thread to focus of Dembski's limiting the definintion of Direct evolution and IC.

Tell Mike B, I formally left ARN (had my membership removed) because I could ignore a lot from Jazz, but not this hair trigger threat to ban me simply because I was in agreement with another poster. In none of my posts did I call call Jazz out as a horrible moderator, then everything I post there after gets deleted.

Mike B, know what you are talking about before you criticize another poster for being disgruntled. I did not highjack a single thread (ala DNAunion and his obsession with Julie/Wolf), nor did I make joking threats (ala CML). Or post little sidetracking quips (ala Jazz himself onseveral posts).

I normally avoid the ARN peanut gallery threads, but I came across this and just had to post it.

Someone claims, ARN also seems to be getting into censorship mode recently.

And then Jazzraptor replies:

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I really resent this comment. You have political opponents of ID frequenting IDist discussion boards trying to shout down or spam any hint of discussion, and the ID boards are guilty of censorship? Critics typically outnumber IDist here 2 to 1 onthe threads. They often avoid engaging in discussion, but merely link to anti-ID sites! Why aren't you criticizing this bizarre phenomenon?

Here's an example. Some poor guy asks for data supporting ID. If someone doesn't have data supporting ID . . . they should have stayed off of the thread. Right? Is that what happened? No. Look at post 1:

quote:------------------------------------------------------------------------You may be out of luck here. There is no valid scientific data because ID does not do that kind of scientific research . . .------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look at post 2:

quote:------------------------------------------------------------------------See www.talkdesign.org and www.talkreason.org for sites which contain a lot of material about the lack of substance to ID. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Go down and look at XYC's posts on the thread for the very worst examples of this mindless, thoughtless form of anti-ID propaganda. I can't call it anything else. This thread marked a turning point for me, because I recognised that THIS indeed is a form of censorship. NOT anything that I've done. Give me one example where I've engaged in censorship here at ARN. Pretty much anything goes idea-wise. Please do not confuse me disallowing a form of censorship with censorship itself.

So let's get this straight. Expressing one's opinion about a controversial subject and providing links to further information is a form of censorship, but deleting people's posts simply because you don't like them isn't?! And what is this "shut-down or spam any hint of discussion" nonsense? Since when did the ID critics have a means to "shut down" anything? Is he calling Ex-YECer's cross-posting of very lengthy posts spam? (He quickly deletes or bitches about everything Ex-YECer posts, regardless of any potential infraction of the supposed rules.) This is just too much. Black is white. Freedom is slavery. Blech!

I am positive Paul Nelson has been there from the start. You can probably guess his pseudonym, though lately his contributions have also tapered off. With less certainty, I believe Jay Richards and Michael Behe may also have posted.

As for ISCID fellows, I have seen posts from Walter Remine, Langans, and Ronald Hirsch.

I am positive Paul Nelson has been there from the start. You can probably guess his pseudonym, though lately his contributions have also tapered off. With less certainty, I believe Jay Richards and Michael Behe may also have posted.

As for ISCID fellows, I have seen posts from Walter Remine, Langans, and Ronald Hirsch.

Just out of curiosity, do you know this for a fact (Behe, Richards, and Nelson specifically) or is this at least partially a matter of speculation on your part? If you do know for a fact, do you mind sharing how you came about this knowledge? (I'm aware that Dembski, ReMine, Langan, and Hirsch have all used their real names there.)

Paul Nelson's research interests include the relationships between development biology and our knowledge of the history of life, the theory of intelligent design, and the bearing of theology on science (and vice versa). He is married to Suzanne Nelson, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, and has two daughters, Hannah (age 10), and Olivia (age 8). Paul enjoys reading, listening to classical and rock music, going to movies, coaching his daughter Hannah’s ice hockey team, and walking his dog Beau, a golden retriever.

http://www.iscid.org/paul-nelson.phpAlso, in the ARN thread quoted above, Paul accidentally posted as ARN Moderator (a common mistake for him), who apparently has the title of "Administrator." Of course, sitting on ARN's Board of Directors puts him in position to have that kind of power. Both ARN Moderator and Nelson have been at ARN forum since its inception. The thread also illustrates an interesting personal facet:

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Re your list of theist evolutionary biologists above: Ruse is not a theist; Collins is not an evolutionary biologist, nor is Ken Miller; Dobzhansky is dead (although I'll still count him in the list; however, I've read that he was closer to pantheism than orthodox theism); Gee and the other Miller (Keith) are, if you will, the exceptions that prove the rule. (Ayala is extremely coy about his theological opinions, but I know of no hard evidence, after he left the priesthood, that he declared himself publicly to be a theist.) The level of vocal irreligion among evolutionary biologists is much higher than among other scientists, and much higher than among the population as a whole. This is not an accidental correlation.

It's instructive to wander the halls of an evolutionary biology building, as I've often done when lecturing at other institutions, to see what sort of cartoons and jokes people post on their lab doors. If I had a dime for every anti-Christian or anti-theist cartoon, every "10 Reasons Why Beer is Better than Jesus" list, or every Darwin fish eating a Christian fish, I could pay off my student loans tomorrow and have cash left over for a very fine vacation in Nova Scotia. Again: these aren't accidental correlations.

I wonder whether this hypersensitivity to anti-Christian sentiments is correlated to a creationist stance. Also, Nelson got his doctorate in 1998. The student loans reference is not unreasonable.

Nelson is a philosopher by training, and has a rather unique writing style. For instance, his use of arcana is sprinkled across many of his posts. Here is just one example I found through a quick scan:

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Just kidding. Defining "best explanation" will only move the chess pieces a few squares, to some other epistemological desiderata, where you can again ask, "[blank] in what sense?" So if it's OK with you, I'll just leave "best explanation" undefined, and we can spare ourselves the tiresome game of chasing adjectives across the philosophical landscape. The best explanation for the origin of the Pyramids is intelligent design. The best explanation for the brown color of the lawn outside my office is the lack of rain in this area. Et cetera.

Your point, however, seems to be that rarefied design is inadmissible as a scientific inference in principle. That is, we are forbidden by the rules of science to infer an unobserved designer (a) irrespective of the evidence, and (b) irrespective of the predictive power or explanatory strength of our design theory. It wouldn't matter -- to use Kitcher's desiderata -- how well-articulated the design theory might be, or how empirical its character.

Finally, for those of you who have been at ARN a while, you can convince yourself by asking whether or not Paul makes consistent arguments across threads at both sites (e.g. his staunch defense of Wells and Dembski, etc.) and his other writings. I am fairly convinced, but I could be wrong.

As for Behe and Richards, I'll PM my suspicions if you are curious.

PS: I realize that members here may be sensitive to "outing" pseudonyms. If this is the case, please let me know, and I (or the Moderator) will delete this post.

For a group whose leadership gets mileage out of claims of "censorship", the ARN Bulletin Board moderators seem to be awfully thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.

There have been a flurry of "bannings" of "intelligent design" critics on the ARN BB. Apparently, the tactic of choice is to remove privileges without removing the member ID, which means that (1) the affected member cannot post nor communicate via "personal message" with the moderators and (2) to other members, it simply appears that the affected member has merely stopped posting voluntarily.

It would be unfair to call the ARN BB moderaton practices a "Mickey Mouse operation". After all, the Disney corporation is a world-wide conglomerate whose operations are nothing if not professional. That certainly isn't the reputation that the ARN BB moderators are making for themselves.

The heavy-handed tactics at the ARN BB simply reflect the insecurity and brittleness of "intelligent design" advocacy on the whole. Having abandoned reasoned attempts at making a positive empirical case for design, the "intelligent design" advocates are left with a rickety facade on an empty paradigm. Expect more "viewpoint discrimination" from "intelligent design" advocates wherever they hold administrative abilities to silence critics or remove what those critics say.

Mod6 has been harassing science advocates on ARN for weeks, while letting the most truculent ID advocates free reins. I got reprimanded a few weeks ago for calling mturner "skyturner" (from Luke Skywalker, because of his metaphysical belief in the power of the Force), in a thread in which mturner was at his most pathological self, freely insulting people, and thumping his chest about "whupping their ass".

Now, apparently I have been "suspended" for telling someone "hold on to your breeches", and saying that it must be hard for creationists to keep an open mind about what biologist tell them (duh! ). This was in the Sternberg thread, which thanks to the clueless moderation is now practically a free-for-all libel fest about "darwinists" and the Smithsonian faculty, and where people posted things like "Crucify him!" without eliciting a moderation peep (the post got deleted only after I e-mailed the moderation a response to my earlier reprimand about "breeches").

But now, the best: after my banning, I asked a friend to send the moderation a private message explaining that mod6 reasons for banning me were preposterous, and he got banned too, accused of being my sockpuppet (or I his)! That's about as clueless as it gets... LOL

Mod6 has been harassing science advocates on ARN for weeks, while letting the most truculent ID advocates free reins. I got reprimanded a few weeks ago for calling mturner "skyturner" (from Luke Skywalker, because of his metaphysical belief in the power of the Force), in a thread in which mturner was at his most pathological self, freely insulting people, and thumping his chest about "whupping their ass".

So my 'mod6=nobody' idea is not so off the wall after all...

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But now, the best: after my banning, I asked a friend to send the moderation a private message explaining that mod6 reasons for banning me were preposterous, and he got banned too, accused of being my sockpuppet (or I his)! That's about as clueless as it gets... LOL

I think that pretty much clinches it!

I've noticed a few other pro-science types that have 'mysteriously' stopped posting out of the blue. I suspect the purges are beginning, and I wouldn't be surprised if the 'old guard' was behind it - prodding admin to get rid of the evil ones...

And what is the deal with ReMine? Is he a major egomaniac or what? I think he is just unable to accept the fact that whatever the merits of his 'model' or his definition or whatever he is calling it might be, it really says nothing of evolution if he cannot tell us how many mutations must have occurred to account for evolution.

It is like he is damning the concept of addition despite the fact that we do not know what X represents in the equation2+x=5.